There are funding rounds, and then there are funding rounds. Zalora, a Rocket Internet fashion e-commerce venture, has today revealed that it has raised a massive USD 100M in venture capital from Summit Partners, Investment AB Kinnevik, Verlinvest, and Tengelmann Group.
Most of the investors are Rocket Internet regulars: Summit, Kinnevik, and Tengelmann have bankrolled Lazada before, while the latter has funded Zalora once. Verlinvest, a new — or previously low-key — participant, is a Belgian investment holding company.
The repeat investments portends well for Zalora’s prospects in Asia, a challenging market with relatively low basket sizes, tough infrastructural challenges, and market fragmention.
It shows that investors are confident that the business, despite enduring a loss of EUR 70M (USD 90M) in 2012, down-scaling in Taiwan, and a number of high-profile staff departures, will be able to weather the storm and emerge as the dominant fashion e-commerce player outside of China and India. Read more
Nitrous.IO (formerly Action.IO), a Singapore-based startup that makes setting up an Integrated Development Environment a snap, has just announced a USD 1M round led by Silicon Valley based Bessemer Venture Partners.
Draper Associates, CrunchFund, 500 Startups, TIBCO Software, Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin, Singapore’s Golden Gate Ventures, and Peanut Labs co-founder and CTO Prosper Nwankpa also participated in this round. According to Golden Gate Ventures partner Vinnie Lauria, his firm put in less than USD 50k in this round, which was closed third-quarter of last year. Read more
Singapore’s crowdfunding scene has continued gathering steam with two campaigns setting new records for the country.
Silverline, a project by Newton Circus which empowers old folks with senior-friendly smartphones, has raised USD 36,000 with four days to go. Meanwhile, Bamboobee, which promises lifestyle bicycles made of Bamboo, has collected USD 39,000 with 15 days remaining.
In terms of money raised, these efforts are a new high for Singapore’s crowdfunding scene.
The Silverline project, first covered by SGE here, is running a flexible campaign, meaning the project will be funded even if it doesn’t hit the target amount. Bamboobee, on the other hand, will receive the money only if it reaches the goal of USD 40,000, which it should have no trouble doing.
The encouraging results from both campaigns are part of a trend of Singapore projects starting crowdfunding campaigns on international platforms — and achieving some success.
Singapore’s previous record was held by local filmmaker Kenny Gee, who eventually raised USD 29,000 on Indiegogo for his short film The Body.
While international platforms have been home to Singapore’s most successful campaigns, local sites like Crowdonomic have chalked up small wins which may lay the groundwork for more ambitious projects.
Its most successful campaign so far is Mighty Dungeon, a mobile game inspired by HeroQuest, a popular 90s board game. With the help of over USD 3,000 from givers, the game has made its way to iOS and Android, where it is receiving solid reception.
IMJ Fenox, a new venture capital firm focusing on Southeast Asia, Japan, and the United States, has been jointly set up by IMJ Corporation, a web and mobile company in Japan, and Fenox VC, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm.
The new fund will invest in mobile, internet, and software companies in Southeast Asia, Japan, and the United States. It is headquartered in Singapore, and has branch offices in Jakarta and Tokyo. Read more
Philippine startup incubator IdeaSpace has announced the ten winners of its national startup competition. The startups will each receive P500k (USD 12k) in seed funding and six months of incubation, where they will get office space, business operations support, and housing facilities for those not based in Metro Manila.
During the incubation period, the more promising startups could receive additional cash support from IdeaSpace of up to P5 million. Teams will also be introduced to other investors in Philippines, Silicon Valley, and other parts of the world. Read more
Ohanae, a Singapore startup that is offering enterprises and professionals a way to safeguard data on the cloud, has raised a six-digit sum from TNF Ventures, a Singapore-based early-stage fund.
While TNF is under the government’s Technology Incubation Scheme, which co-funds startups along with the private investor, all the money from this round is supplied by TNF.
Altogether, the startup has raised USD 2.4M since inception in 2007. It just received a grant from SPRING TECS, and they’re now seeking a Series A round of USD 5M.
Read more
Silicon Valley-based Fenox Venture Capital has announced today that it has invested in IACC, a Japanese startup that is running a solar power marketplace based in Japan. The company has amassed USD 10M in revenue in the last fiscal year, representing a 500 percent year-on-year growth.
The marketplace, called Green-EnergyNavi, matches solar power products to consumers’ energy requirements. The website contains user reviews and cost estimates for a specific item, allowing consumers to select products that best meet their needs. Read more
TribeHired, a social recruitment website started by a team from Malaysia, announced that it has closed SGD 696K (USD 560K) in early stage funding led by TNF Ventures through the Singapore government’s Technology Incubation Scheme. Angel investors Ben Ball and Ben Chew also contributed.
A graduate of startup accelerator JFDI.Asia‘s inaugural bootcamp, TribeHired is currently in beta with several thousand job seekers in Malaysia. It is also being used by companies such as Zalora, Lazada, fellow JFDI.Asia grad Flocations, and Brandtology. Read more
AdzCentral, a Singapore startup building an online targeted media buying platform, announced today that it has raised SGD 4M (USD 3.2M) from Electric Sheep Capital and Digital Media Partners. It is a relatively huge round in the region considering that Asia is facing a Series A crunch.
The funds will be used for expansion first in Asia-Pacific and then Asia, focusing on sales, marketing, and product development. It currently has a team of about 20, mostly based in Singapore, but it also has employees in Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Read more
Canva, an Australia-based startup that is aiming to disrupt the desktop design industry, has announced today that it has raised USD 3M in seed funding from Australian and US investors, including Matrix Partners, InterWest Partners and 500 Startups.
The other participants in this deal are: angel investor Bill Tai, Blackbird Ventures, Director of Engineering at Facebook Lars Rasmussen, Yahoo! CFO Ken Goldman, and former Seek co-founder Paul Bassat and partner at Square Peg Ventures. Commercialisation Australia, a government funding scheme, also contributed in this round. Read more
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